Union-Tribune partners with Nextdoor for local approach to social media

This past spring, The San Diego Union-Tribune began testing a new service for local readers of the social network Nextdoor, sharing news stories at the neighborhood level.

After weeks of testing for different geographic levels of sharing, and trying different kinds of stories, the partnership will be officially announced this week.

So far, it’s been a good fit.

Of course, the Union-Tribune and its predecessor newspapers have been publishing news of local interest since 1868. But as social media has started taking more of people’s time and attention, our options for sharing stories in that realm are limited. Users of social media giant Facebook are as likely to be in Portland as Poway, as likely to be in Ocean City as Oceanside.

Nextdoor gives us a new way to reach readers with news related to their own neighborhood. A car crash. A new recycling center. A change in curriculum.

Three of our most popular stories shared on Nextdoor were about free events at Comic-Con, a new ride service to Los Angeles and research on heavy drinkers and dementia.

We’re also using the service to listen to readers, monitoring comments for things people share that might be newsworthy. And we reached out to people on Nextdoor to get ideas for our community almanac, published in April.

Nextdoor is a closed community, and it verifies residency before bringing new users on board. Because they’re neighbors — not just avatars in the ether — the conversations tend to take place with a little less vitriol than some other forums.

Neighbors can switch off our posts if they don’t want to see them. But for the most part, they have been welcoming. Many appreciate the conversations sparked by a news story.